[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 12235]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            BETHLEHEM STEEL

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BRIAN HIGGINS

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 20, 2006

  Mr. HIGGINS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to include for the Record the 
following comments I submitted to the Advisory Board on Radiation and 
Worker Health at their meeting on the Bethlehem Steel Site Profile on 
June 16, 2006 here in Washington.
  This is an urgent matter of justice for hundreds of former Bethlehem 
Steel workers and their families, and I believe it deserves Congress' 
due consideration. To that end I respectfully urge my colleagues to 
support H.R. 3481, legislation introduced by the Western New York 
congressional delegation to resolve this issue by including workers 
employed at the Bethlehem Steel site as a class to be included in the 
Special Exposure Cohort. Thank you.

      Statement of the Honorable Brian Higgins, Member of Congress

       I want to thank the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 
     health for allowing me to make this statement today.
       I wanted to take the opportunity of your meeting in 
     Washington, DC to appeal to the Advisory Board to recommend 
     that the former workers at the Bethlehem Steel Site in 
     Lackawanna, New York be designated a Special Exposure Cohort.
       As this Board is well aware, significant controversy exists 
     with respect to the dose reconstruction efforts at the 
     Bethlehem Steel site. NIOSH undertook an extensive effort on 
     dose reconstruction, but I and my colleagues in the Western 
     New York congressional delegation have gone on record as to 
     the shortcomings of that study, a litany I will not take your 
     time with today. Subsequently, the Board hired an independent 
     private consultant to perform its own analysis, and the 
     results were vastly different from the NIOSH study. Perhaps 
     this is not surprising given the difficulty incumbent in 
     reconstructing radiation exposure that occurred over 50 years 
     ago.
       Meanwhile, during all of this debate, study, and re-study, 
     the former, ill-stricken Bethlehem Steel employees and the 
     families of the deceased have waited patiently. They have 
     waited for justice but all they have received are statistics 
     and studies. These workers are not statistics--they are the 
     men and women who, by their efforts, helped America win the 
     Cold War. Now as a result of their work they are sick. They 
     deserve to have their sacrifice honored and recognized, not 
     minimized and trivialized.
       We must concede that given the dearth of reliable 
     information we have on the working conditions at Bethlehem 
     Steel over 50 years ago, despite NIOSH's great efforts, any 
     dose reconstruction is doomed to inadequately provide justice 
     to these workers. The only just alternative available to us 
     under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation 
     Program Act is to make these workers a Special Exposure 
     Cohort. My colleagues and I have introduced legislation to 
     make this designation, but it is stuck in committee. We have 
     appealed to the President to declare a special cohort 
     administratively, but he has demurred.
       It is now up to this Board and the Department of Labor to 
     do right by these workers, and to recommend a Special 
     Exposure Cohort. You are the last, best hope that these 
     workers will see justice; I implore you to act quickly.
       Again, thank you for allowing me to address the Board 
     today. I look forward to working with you to ensure that 
     these workers and their families receive the compensation 
     they are entitled to under the law, and the medical care they 
     deserve.

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